This year, the number of PhD students in Ukraine has officially begun to grow. The fact is that Ukrainian higher education institutions (HEIs) are massively entering names of people who allegedly enrolled into PhD programs in previous years into the unified electronic system.
We are talking about several thousand PhD students who were officially registered “retroactively”. NGL.media’s analysis found that in 2024, the state register contained records of more than 5,000 PhD students who were allegedly enrolled into higher education institutions in previous years. Obviously, this is only part of the problem. PhD students were enrolled outside the limits set by the Ministry of Education, and some universities did not enter them into the national electronic system at all, so this figure may be higher.
NGL.media publishes only exclusive investigations and analytics based on big data. Please support our work so we can make more content like this
***
Information on enrolled PhD students і a PhD student is a person who has a complete higher education and educational qualification of a master’s or specialist’s degree, is studying in a PhD program of a higher education institution or research institution and is writing a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy is entered into the Unified State Electronic Database on Education (USEDE), which contains various registers of both providers and recipients of educational services. Thanks to the data from this database, NGL.media was able to identify an unprecedented increase in the number of draft-aged male students.
According to the order of the Ministry of Education, educational institutions must enter information about students into the USEDE within 5 working days of receiving or generating it; in fact immediately after the order on enrollment has been made.
However, the USEDE analysis shows that data on PhD students enrolled in 2021-2023 was entered in 2024. In addition, some higher education institutions appear to have violated the established licensed volumes.
The peak of the sudden increase in the number of PhD students occurred in May 2024, when more than 4,000 PhD students from previous years were added to the system. The most likely reason is the new mobilization legislation. Until mid-May, an order of enrollment and a simple certificate from the educational institution itself served as the documents confirming the right to defer mobilization.
But since mid-May, a new Cabinet of Ministers resolution has come into effect, stipulating that the only document confirming the right to defer mobilization for PhD students is a certificate generated in the USEDE.
“As of today, a significant number of PhD students have lost their right to deferral,” says lawyer Yevhen Filipets. “The reason for this was Resolution No. 560 of May 16, 2024, which defined [the certificate from the USED] as the only document authorizing the deferral. Territorial centres of enlistment and social support are very formal about this, and a significant category of persons who cannot provide these certificates are denied.”
According to Filipets, men who are studying full-time at a university but for one reason or another cannot obtain a certificate from the USEDE, often approach him for advice these days. One of these reasons is that they were enrolled outside the licensed volumes and the university simply did not enter their names into the unified electronic database.
“There was the excess”
The surge in the number of PhD students did not go unnoticed by the Ministry of Education and Science. Deputy Minister Mykhailo Vynnytskyi says that it was in May that they noticed the a large number of PhD students in the 2022 and 2023 classes suddenly appearing in the USEDE.
“We periodically draw reports from the Unified State Electronic Database on Education. And we saw that one institution had retroactively enrolled PhD students of the 2023 en masse. The program stipulated that higher education institutions could not enroll more PhD students than their licensed number. However, as it turned out, some of our resourceful institutions saw that it was possible to enroll postgraduates retroactively from the beginning of the new year without these restrictions. For this category of PhD students, the limit was not set,” explains Mykhailo Vynnytskyi.
This loophole has already been closed. In addition, certain restrictions were imposed. Higher education institutions could not generate a PhD students’ certificate from the USEDE of the data was entered with violation of the deadlines, and could not add new PhD students to the database after the fact.
A temporary interdepartmental commission was also set up to review the documents for each PhD student individually. At the end of June, the Ministry of Education and Science sent letters to 147 higher education institutions demanding that they provide documents on each problematic student.
The absolute record holder in terms of the number of PhD students entered in the USEDE was the Classical Private University from Zaporizhzhia, which, according to the Ministry of Education and Science, exceeded the licensed volume by almost 3,500 people in the last two academic years.
NGL.media analysis of the data obtained on request і data provided by the State Enterprise “Inforesource”, which is the technical administrator of the Unified State Electronic Database on Education shows that data on more than 3,400 men who entered the postgraduate program at this private university last year were entered into the USEDE only in May of this year.
Data was entered into the USEDE even on weekends. On Saturdays and Sundays alone, almost 1700 graduate students were entered into the system, working even at night. Information on more than two hundred graduate students were entered between midnight and 6 a.m.
As we were preparing this article, the Ministry of Education revoked the license of the Classical Private University. However, the management of this institution went to court, demanding that the order of the Ministry of Education on the results of the inspection be declared illegal and canceled. On August 22, the university succeeded not only in suspending the order of the Ministry of Education and Science for the duration of the trial; the court also prohibited the Ministry to block or suspend the ability of the Classic Private University to create and upload certificates from the USEDE, which PhD students have to submit to the TEC.
In a conversation with NGL.media, Victor Ogarenko, Rector of the Classical Private University, says that they were forced to enroll PhD students over the limits because of the lack of funds. “We were on the verge of firing people who worked here. That’s why the Academic Council made such a collective decision”, he says.
As for the enrollment of the largest number of PhD students in May, the rector said it was due to “difficulties in the work” in Zaporizhzhia, as well as regular power outages.
“Wouldn’t it have been better not to register them in the database, like some universities do? You probably know that this situation was the same in all universities across Ukraine, with the excess number of students. Almost all universities went for it. And most of them did not enter anything [into the USEDE]. This also includes our universities from Zaporizhzhia. They just cheated people and that was it. But we did enter in information. I think the ministry was aware of this. There was an opportunity to suspend the data entry, but no one did”, says Viktor Ogarenko.
In addition, it turned out that back in April this year, such activities attracted the attention of the police, who launched an investigation under part. 4 of Art. 368-3 and para. 5 of Art. 361 of the Criminal Code (bribery of an official and unauthorized interference with information networks).
According to investigators, in addition to paying fee for two semesters, the future graduate students had to pay another $3,000 bribe. Two months ago, the court arrested more than three thousand PhD students’ personal files and other documents seized during the search.
“You know, let them investigate, and we will only help if someone was involved in this,” Rector Viktor Oharenko commented on the alleged bribery. “What was paid through the university’s cash desk, belongs to the university, and what was not paid, doesn’t. To date, the university has used the funds received from enrolled PhD students to pay taxes until January 1, 2025, i.e. make advance payments to help the Armed Forces of Ukraine.”
The rector also emphasizes that the university will not expel all those enrolled above the limit. “We have raised the question that we will conduct the performance review. We will expel those who fail it. If we simply expel them, what should it be based on? There were too many, but who should be expelled? The one who was enrolled the 160th or the 3000th?” he says.
A loophole in the system
While the story of the Classic Private University is striking in its scope, other higher education institutions were more cautious. The next five universities in our ranking enrolled about 100 to 300 PhD students from previous years in 2024. That is, their numbers are not so impressive.
Deputy Minister Mykhailo Vynnytsky does not want to name specific universities that went above the number of enrolled PhD students until the inspections are completed.
“The Classic Private University is not the only university that took advantage of the loophole in the USEDE. There were also institutions that enrolled PhD students in good faith within the framework of their activities and simply did not enter information into the USEDE in time. The task of the commission is to figure out who simply made a mistake and did not submit it on time, and who tried to use this “bug” to their advantage”, says Vynnytskyi. – “I think it would be wrong of me [to name specific higher education institutions], because the institution could have failed to submit documents to us on time for various reasons. I don’t want to blame anyone now. When we have the results of these inspections, we will be able to announce them, including the consequences of these inspections”.
According to Vynnytsky, if we don’t take into account the Classic Private University, there were about 2,400 other problematic PhD students. About a thousand of them have already been checked.
“In many cases, we were talking about one or two PhD students, there were no problems with exceeding the licensed volume, it just so happened that their data wasn’t entered in time. Among them were foreigners, women, and part-time PhD students. Therefore, the figure of 147 is the total number of institutions and establishments that had problems, but many of these have already been resolved”, explains Vynnytskyi.
In response to NGL.media’s request, the Ministry of Education and Science sent a list of 147 higher education institutions that created cards in the system for PhD students in 2022-2023 – a total of 5,709 PhD students. This is the data as of May. Separately, in July, NGL.media received a set of data from the State Enterprise “Inforesource” upon request, and it contains two hundred PhD students less than that. Probably, some universities have already expelled some of the PhD students or revoked the orders on their enrollment.
Several of the HEIs we interviewed reported that they had already been inspected by the interdepartmental commission of the Ministry of Education and Science. For example, Mykola Frolov, Rector of Zaporizhzhia National University, shared this information. He explained that in 2024, they entered people’s data into the database late due to the “human factor”. According to the Ministry of Education and Science, as of May, the university had 273 such PhD students. At the same time, NGL.media found a lawsuit filed by 12 PhD students of Zaporizhzhia National University who are challenging their expulsion from the university in June this year. Their lawyer said that their data hadn’t been included in the USEDE. According to the information received from “Inforesource”, none of the PhD students from the previous year’s enrollment were expelled from this university.
The PhD program of the State Research Institute for Informatization and Economic Modeling is also being checked. According to Ihor Huzhva, deputy director, the data of PhD students was entered into the USEDE retroactively for various reasons, including the change of management bodies, as the institute was transferred to the State Property Fund.
“The Ministry of Education and Science sent us two letters. The first one asked for documents about students, from enrollment orders to tuition receipts. The second letter was about clarifying some data. We have submitted the package of documents, but have not yet received a response”, he says і According to Igor Guzhva, who contacted NGL.media after the publication of this article, as a result of inspections by the State Service for the Assessment of the Quality of Education and the corresponding commission of the Ministry of Education, no violations in the rules for enrolling postgraduate students were found. .
The Lviv National University of Veterinary Medicine and Biotechnology has already passed the inspection. Acting Rector Ivan Parubchak explains that he took over on September 7, 2023, when the data on graduate students should have already been entered into the USEDE. He says he could not find out the reason for this situation.
They had 72 such PhD students last year. Unlike many other universities whose websites NGL.media studied, the “veterinary” university publishes its enrollment orders. We even checked the metadata of the files. They were last saved on September 4-5, 2023, so there is no chance that someone was enrolled later.
Zaporizhzhia Polytechnic University was late with entering data of almost two hundred PhD students admitted in 2023 into the USEDE. Rector Viktor Hreshta explained that they were guided by another resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers, which until January of this year did not explicitly state the need to enter PhD students’ data in the USEDE. As soon as its new version came into effect, they did so. This explanation is strange, since all the HEIs and representatives of the ministry we interviewed are following order that requires data to be entered into the USEDE within five days. According to Hreshta, last year Zaporizhzhia Polytechnic enrolled even fewer PhD students than their limit, 196 against the allowed 221.
According to the data, this year the Academy of Labor, Social Relations and Tourism has registered 141 PhD students of the class of 2023. According to the rector, Viktor Sukhomlyn, they did not enter the information in the USEDE, allegedly because not all students had a complete package of documents on military registration. It was only after all male PhD students updated their data in the Territorial centre of enlistment and social support that the academy started entering their data into the database.
However, Viktor Sukhomlyn did not wait for clarifying questions and hung up. He simply did not answer subsequent calls.
In total, there are about 1,400 PhD students left to be checked across the country, says Deputy Minister Mykhailo Vynnytskyi. “Of these, more than a thousand are from institutions that do not provide us with any additional information about enrollment. As for 400 [PhD students], we are currently conducting checks, and I think that in the near future, temporary restrictions will be lifted for many of them. There may be girls, women, and foreigners among that thousand”, the deputy minister says, once again arguing why it is bad to name specific potential violators.
The results of the inspection are expected to come in September-October. Meanwhile, Vynnytskyi says, there are attempts to put pressure on the ministry or to unblock the PhD students of some universities.
“Frankly speaking, I am approached by many different people through various informal appeals regarding some institutions, including current and former MPs, including various individuals who believe that I can be somehow pressured or other members of the commission can be somehow influenced”, says Vynnytskyi. – “We always respond to all such requests: please submit the documents required by the list, and we will review them as soon as possible and lift the restrictions. If there are no documents that show that the respective PhD student actually enrolled in 2023, actually took classes, passed entrance exams, and paid the tuition, we cannot then “release” their cards in order to generate certificates for the TEC”.
“The Ministry of Education is not an investigative authority”
Entering PhD students into the USEDE retroactively is not the only problem. There are suspicions that at least 15 Ukrainian higher education institutions have violated the licensed amounts, and now they are being checked by the licensing commission. These are both public and private institutions, says Mykhailo Vynnytskyi.
Here again, the ministry did not name a single institute or university. Our analysis of the data showed three dozen higher education institutions with deviations from the amount, but most of them are one to three people. Still, there are a few where the deviations are significant.
For example, the aforementioned Kyiv Academy of Labor, Social Relations and Tourism not only entered 141 PhD students from last year’s admission campaign into the USEDE. Having a licensed number of 40 PhD students per year, for some reason, they entered more than three hundred people into the USEDE in the previous two years. At the same time, there were very few expulsions.
As soon as Ihor Chornodid, the Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs, heard the gist of the question about the excessive enrollment, he hung up the phone saying he would call back later, and he never did. The next day he did not answer the call.
In response to a written request to explain the reason for exceeding the licensed volumes, the Academy of Labor sent NGL.media only a formal response, which did not contain a single word of substance.
We either couldn’t get through to several other universities at all, or they refused to talk, so we sent inquiries. It turned out that universities were also expelling PhD students en masse. Therefore, if the enrollment was exceeded, they could still stay within the permitted limits.
The private European University of Kyiv can be an example of that. With a licensed number of 303 PhD students, in 2022 they had 90 more people entered in the USEDE. In their response to our request, the European University explained that in 2022 they enrolled 383 PhD students, not 393, but expelled 117. Similarly, in 2023, 309 people were enrolled, but 42 were expelled. We confirmed these figures with a separate request to “Inforesource”. The data for 2023 fully coincided, and in 2022 we saw ten more expelled students.
Instead, the Research Institute of Public Law (Kyiv) can enroll 15 PhD students annually, but the data we received shows that in 2022 they enrolled 81 graduate students (36 were later expelled), and in 2023 – 49 graduate students (only one was expelled this year).
NGL.media’s research also revealed there are some HEIs that did not enter their enrolled PhD students into the unified database at all. We found it out the following way. Our journalist asked PhD students who could not get a certificate from the USEDE to contact her, and most of them turned out to be PhD students of the private Lviv University of Business and Law. Also, several Lviv lawyers who handle similar problematic cases reported that most of their clients who cannot obtain a certificate from the USEDE are PhD students of this particular institution.
According to the official data of the system, in 2023 this university enrolled only one PhD student, and 106 PhD students in 2022 (their licensed number is 80 people). These are people who have already been entered into the database. So, obviously, this is not the final figure.
Finally, we received confirmation of the problems of Lviv University of Business and Law from the Ministry of Education and Science.
“We are currently checking one institution, which claims that in 2023 it admitted people to graduate school, but did not enter their data into the USEDE. This is the institution you mentioned in your request і NGL.media sent a request to the Ministry of Education and Science specifically about Lviv University of Business and Law . At their own request, they pointed out that they had exceeded the licensed number and that they were accepting PhD students under unaccredited educational programs. So, accordingly, their actions are now being checked. It is obvious that until May 16, they may have issued some paper certificates. Now we will check, also with the General Staff, how many people are allegedly given the deferral under such certificates”, Mykhailo Vynnytskyi told NGL.media in an interview.
The deputy minister did not say how many “extra” PhD students he was talking about: “This is a question that will be the result of investigations conducted by relevant commissions. I still believe in certain procedural actions. We must understand that the Ministry of Education and Science is not an investigative authority”.
Lviv Regional Territorial centre of enlistment and social support could not provide information on deferrals from mobilization for PhD students of the Lviv University of Business and Law because they do not collect such statistics.
For a week, we kept trying to get comments from Zhanna Semchuk, the acting rector of Lviv University of Business and Law, who owns 51% of the university’s authorized capital і the remaining 49% belongs to Rostyslav Sopilnyk, a son of the former head of Lviv Research Forensic Center of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine . Then a university lawyer promised to answer our questions, but he failed to do so in almost three weeks.
Five more higher education institutions will be inspected by the State Education Quality Service; or rather, two institutions are currently being inspected, and inspection for three more is planned. “According to a letter from the Educational Ombudsman, the Service is currently inspecting two higher education institutions: Hryhorii Skovoroda University in Pereiaslav and Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Arts”, NGL.media was informed in response to a request.
What should PhD students do?
If your university or institute is still undergoing inspection, you will have to wait until the restrictions are lifted. If you are the one who was enrolled over the licensed number, and your university’s license has been revoked, it is more complicated.
Using the example of the Classical Private University, Mykhailo Vynnytskyi explains that PhD students who enrolled in 2021-2023 without violating the law, can be transferred to other educational institutions to complete their PhD studies. But those enrolled over the limit cannot apply for such a transfer. The principle of cutting off the excess is time-based and rating-based. That is, if the licensed number was 100 PhD students, the first hundred in the ranking of those entered into the USEDE will be transferred to other institutions, and all those entered later will not.
“There are two cases of PhD students who were already defending their theses at the Classic Private University when the license was revoked. We made it possible for those PhD students to complete their PhD studies and defend their theses. If the thesis defense procedure has already been launched, then this process should be completed, and obviously the Ministry of Education and Science will recognize such defense”, says Deputy Minister of Education and Science Mykhailo Vynnytskyi.
This publication was prepared with financial support from the National Endowment for Democracy. The content of the publication is the sole responsibility of the editors and does not reflect the views of the National Endowment for Democracy